NINA offers respite
from a tough business

By Jan Larsen

So here it is. The column I've waited three years to write. The final salvo from the 2002 NINA president.

I follow in the steps of such luminaries as Lonny Cain, Rick Nagel, Cheryl Wormley ... and I suspect we all shared the same response about this time of year.

Whew! We survived! NINA survived! I survived!

Most of you may remember what a great newspaperman (and human being) my late boss Marx Gibson was. He was my city editor, my managing editor, my mentor. He mentored many people before dying in July of 2000.

When I told him three years ago that I was now officially in line for the NINA throne, I told him I was scared.

"Of what?" he asked.

"Of singlehandedly killing NINA," I replied to my mentor.

"I was afraid I'd do that, too," he remembered.

Marx? Incredible Marx? I learned a lesson that day. You can be big or small, you still get scared.

And you can't let fear glue you into a comfortable little nest.
So I let my little fledgling self get pushed from my cushy perch.

Unfortunately, between saying yes to second vice presidency in NINA, and becoming president, a lot of stuff changed at my job.

My company got sold. (No, really? Some surprise in journalism these days.) My job changed. (Oh, yeah, that never happens in our industry.) My work tripled. (Uh huh. Been there. Done that.)

Excuses, excuses!

In some ways, I let NINA down. I blame it on my crazy job. In other ways, we grew this year. I credit our NINA board.

We held our first-ever (well, first in our memory anyway) seminar for high school journalism advisers. It was a good idea. It was well publicized. It was well planned. It was enjoyed by the very few people who came.

We might try it again.

Contest entries in both our annual NINA competition for professionals and contest for high school journalists increased.
Both spring and fall conferences were a success, due to Pam Lannom, our 2003 NINA president. (Anyone want to play Jeopardy?)

On the debit side, we canceled a June workshop on math and numbers crunching because ... the numbers just weren't there. We did not increase the number of member newspapers, although we did pick up some individual members. We didn't get the word out about the benefits of NINA membership like we should have.

It's a cold, cruel world out there, ladies and gentlemen of journalism. And organizations like NINA offer us a little respite, a little warmth.

We journalists can learn from each other. We can trade ideas. We can improve our staffs by allowing them to attend the incredibly cheap and yet incredibly valuable NINA workshops and conferences.

NINA's goal is one I continue to deeply believe in: to improve print journalism in northern Illinois.

I'm just so grateful that Pam Lannom is now the one who will push, lead, shove, guide, manipulate and steer us closer to that goal.

Good luck, Pam!

Jan Larsen is features editor of the Herald News in Joliet. Contact her at jlarsen@scn1.com.

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